Pain Team

The Pain Team based at Royal Manchester Children's Hospital offers both acute and chronic pain management services: The Pain Service was established in 1994 to improve the management of pain in children having major operations that required infusions of pain relieving medications. Since then the service has expanded and moved into all areas of acute pain management including oncology and medicine. For short painful procedures we can offer techniques such as Entonox therapy and Intranasal Diamorphine. Education is paramount therefore we provide pain management support and training to colleagues around the hospital. The Pain Team sees approximately 1600 patients per year. This includes children with pain related to injuries, operations, tests, procedures and medical conditions.

ADMISSION INFO

 

Acute Pain – Inpatients only

We see all the children in RMCH who are on infusions or epidurals for pain control due to a medical condition, operation or accident. These include continuous IV Morphine Infusions and/or Ketamine Infusions. We also review in patients who are in acute pain and offer advice regarding simple analgesia and when to step-up to stronger pain killers.

Chronic Pain – Outpatient Clinic

Dr Colovic & Dr Kulcsar runs a Chronic Pain Clinic in outpatients once a week. This is a limited and non-funded service therefore waiting times for appointments can be up to 5 months.Patients are seen on a referral basis only using the following criteria:

  • The patient is under 16 years of age.
  • The patient must have had complex/chronic pain that has lasted longer than 12 weeks.
  • All referrals must be made by the patient’s Lead Consultant.
  • Referrals will not be accepted from any other source.
  • Please send a referral letter marked “For the attention of The Chronic Pain Team, Department of Paediatric Anaesthesia, RMCH”.
  • A referral may be faxed to 14875 (Internal) or 0161 701 4875 (external).
  • The referral letter should include the patient’s details, current analgesia and a detailed history including investigations and results.
  • All referral letters will be reviewed by Dr Colovic & Dr Kulcsar  and a decision will then be made whether to follow the patient up in the Chronic Pain Clinic.

LOCATION

Department of Anaesthesia,
Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital
Oxford Road
Manchester
M13 9WL

HOURS

The nursing members of the Pain Team work approximately from 07.30 to 17.00 Monday – Friday. After 17.00 and at weekends the on-call anaesthetist deals with the pain management of patients.

CONTACT

Pain Team Office 0161 701 5626

For all Chronic Pain enquiries including appointments please contact the secretary Paula Gardner on 0161 701 1263 or email paula.gardner@mft.nhs.uk

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT

We have assessment tools to determine your child’s level of pain. For children who can self-report their pain we have the Faces/Ladder scale which allows the child to score their pain by pointing to one of the faces or the number ladder scale. For those children who are unable to self-report their pain the nursing staff use the FLACC behavioural observational scale. Copies of our pain assessment tools can be accessed via related media.

We have introduced the ‘Paediatric Pain Profile’ which is a 20 item behaviour rating scale designed to assess pain in children with neurological impairment. This tool can be used for children with autism and very complex health needs. If your child is coming into hospital for an operation then please feel free to print off a copy of the Paediatric Pain Profile and complete the baseline assessments prior to coming into hospital.

STAFF

Davandra Patel- Consultant Anaesthesia & Lead for the Acute Pain Team

Vesna Colovic – Consultant Anaesthetist & Lead for the Chronic Pain Team

Zsuzsanna Kulcsar – Consultant Anaesthetist & Chronic Pain Consultant

Jan Owen – Consultant Anaesthetist & Acute Pain Consultant

Sister Dorothy Duckworth – Lead Practitioner & Chronic Pain Nurse Specialist

Sister Claire O’Donnell – Clinical Nurse Specialist

Sister Frances Harrison – Clinical Nurse Specialist

Paula Gardner – Chronic Pain Secretary